Restless
by Jonesy219
Summary: They can't sleep. [Following the events of Damage Case]
1. Derek

**A/N: So here's the thing...when I wrote this, it was as a one-shot. Seriously. Buuuuut...since I've gotten a few people asking for a continuation, I'm writing a couple of chapters from other characters' points of view. Thanks so much to those who reviewed, and an advanced thank you for those of you who WILL review... :nudge nudge wink wink:**

I don't own Grey's Anatomy, nor do I own any of the characters. If I did, both Patrick Dempsey and Chris O' Donnell would both be under lock and key in my bedroom…wink wink. Enjoy, and please review!

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Derek couldn't sleep. 

It had been exactly four hours and twenty minutes since he had walked through the doors of Seattle Grace and across the street to Joe's bar. Two hours and twelve minutes since he had clumsily stumbled through the door to his trailer home and immediately gone to the refrigerator, downing his ninth beer for the evening. An hour and forty-five minutes since he had crawled into bed, not bothering to respond to Addison's sleepy interrogation as to where he'd been.

Derek couldn't sleep.

Somewhere outside, crickets were chirping. The moonlight glowed brightly, its rays blocked by the thick curtains framing the windows. The clock on the nightstand read 3:26 am.

Derek couldn't sleep. He couldn't close his eyes. Every time his eyelids shut, he would flash back to those hellish minutes in the stairwell.

_You don't get to call me a whore._

His face hadn't changed since the night that he walked into Dr. Dandridge's apartment to find her there, fresh out of the shower and wrapped up in nothing more than that damned vet's shirt. Something inside of him flared up right then and there, and he'd been hiding it behind a stony, impenetrable countenance ever since. He'd tried to push past it, sweeping Addison into the shower when he got home that night and fucking the pain away, pretending that it was making love and attempting to lose himself in the life that **he** chose. The life that he'd had before he ever met Meredith Grey, with a perfect job, perfect wife...everything just the way it was before.

Why did it all feel so wrong?

_When I met you, I thought I had found the person that I was going to spend the **rest** of my **life** with._

Why the fuck couldn't he get her out of his head? Every time he saw Doc, he'd remember how they used to walk him together in the mornings; how she'd crouch down to rub behind the dog's ears and glance up at Derek, flashing that brilliant smile of hers. Every time he took the elevator at Seattle Grace, his pulse would speed up as he recalled the day that she'd shoved him against the wall and captured his mouth in hers.

When he drove past the ferryboats on the way to work in the morning, he thought of her. When he poured his cereal in the morning he'd recall the mornings he spent at her house after a night of lovemaking, eating breakfast with the other interns. When he caught even the faintest hint of lavender on the air, he'd immediately search the area for that blond hair and hazel eyes.

_It's unforgivable._

He hated her for being everywhere he was, anywhere he was, all the time. He hated her for filling his mind with her face, her wry smile, her pithy remarks. He hated her for seeping into every part of his being, for pervading every single thought that entered his head. He hated her for sleeping with George, for sleeping with Finn Dandridge, for winking at men at Joe's when they bought her drinks. He hated her for letting any man that wasn't him touch her intimately, kiss her lips, hear her sigh and mewl with pleasure and passion.

He hated her for moving on…when it was obvious that he hadn't.

_I don't remember ever **asking** you to forgive me._

He had gone straight to Joe's after his shift was over, sliding into a bar stool and ordering beer after beer after beer. He wanted to drain her out of his system, to forget the way her eyes had shined with hatred and hurt and tears in that stairwell. He tried to forget the way her voice had cracked while she blamed him for breaking her into a million little pieces.

_It **is** done._

The clock on the nightstand read 4:49 am. The only sound that could be heard was Addison's slow and steady breathing, and the chirping of the crickets outside of the trailer window.

Derek lay perfectly still, eyes wide open and focused on the dark ceiling. In his head, he thought he heard Meredith laughing, happy…and when Finn's laughter joined hers, Derek's jaw clenched and his eyes threatened to release the emotion he refused to let show on his face.

_This thing with us is finished. It's over._

_Finally._

Derek couldn't sleep.


	2. Izzie

A humongous **THANK** **YOU** to those of you who reviewed; you're the reason I continued this story (which, I might add, started out as a one-shot...). If I could give you all a chocolate-chip cookie, I would! In the meantime...enjoy this chapter. I might add one or two more before I finish it off.

PS - I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON FINALE TONIGHT, SHONDA IS THE BEAT OF MY **HEART.  
/end crazed and adoring fan rant** ;)

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Izzie couldn't sleep. 

She'd been at Seattle Grace for a grand total of 38 hours, and hadn't gotten any sleep for about 12 hours prior to that. She'd been running on fumes for the last four hours, fighting to keep her eyes open while reviewing patients' charts.

Izzie couldn't sleep.

The moment she'd gotten the okay from Bailey to go on her break, she'd walked straight past the on-call room and made her way the one place she thought she could be at peace; the place that she could go to lose herself. She gently knocked on the door, knowing that it was more of a formality than a necessity. She knew he'd be awake and waiting for her with open arms.

Izzie couldn't sleep. She lay curled up against Denny's side, watching the rise and fall of his chest in the moonlight streaming in through the window and listening to his slow, even breaths. Listening to him drift off to sleep. Watching the lifeline on the bedside monitor, seeing the peaks and valleys that reassured her that Denny was still there, alive and with her.

_For how long?_

She knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with what she was doing. Getting this attached to a patient was strictly off-limits for a reason…but she didn't care. Couldn't care. Refused to. Something about Denny Duquette caught her eye from the moment he stepped into the hospital, and she knew right then that there would be trouble. Alex had known too, questioning her about it even before she had come to terms with it herself, but she had waved it away.

_I'm so tired, Izzie._

How could the life of one person consume her so wholly? How could she live if…if…

_No_, Izzie thought to herself. _That is **not** happening._

She hadn't been home for three days. She couldn't leave the hospital for fear of coming back to find his room empty, his bed sheets changed and all reminders of him erased without a trace. She'd seen it happen so many times, seen the patients slipping away and fading from the memory of Seattle Grace. It was as if they were never there at all.

Izzie had no qualms about what she was doing. She _loved_ Denny. If they could just understand that, they'd know why she had to be there. Why she had to know what his charts looked like, if there was any change, if there was any decision to be made where his life was in the balance.

Christina threw herself into _her_ work and nobody minded. Why couldn't they see that Izzie was just doing the same, but in her own way?

_You have no idea what I have lost!_

They didn't know that he was her everything. If he left, all she was would follow with him…everything would be over.

So they'd have to understand. They'd have to understand why she would do anything for him.

_Anything_.

In the halls of Seattle Grace, people were talking and laughing and working and thinking, breathing, _living_. Hallways were lit up, doors were closed, the echoes of a patient's television could be heard. Somewhere, someone sighed in their sleep.

Denny Duquette had snaked one arm around Izzie's waist in his sleep, bringing her closer to him and tucking her blonde head under his stubble-covered chin. His tired eyes remained closed while she watched him, memorizing his features and feeling peace in the whispering breaths that escaped his lips.

The line on the monitor continued to rise and fall, mimicking the up and down of Denny's chest. The moonlight peeked in through the blinds and thin hospital curtains.

Izzie couldn't sleep.


	3. Christina

I think the next chapter will be the last; these three characters (plus next chapter's) are the ones that I felt for the most after "Damage Case". Thanks to all of you that have reviewed so far; you rock my world! For the rest of you...click that little blue button when you're done reading and tell me what you think, k? ;)

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Christina couldn't sleep.

Burke had long ago closed his eyes and drifted off, a soft snore audible although his back was turned to her. The alarm clock was set to go off in about four hours, and then another 48-hour shift would begin again.

Christina couldn't sleep.

She should have been in a deep sleep, after the grueling three-hour surgery she'd scrubbed in on earlier that day and the lack of a decent night's sleep for the past week or so. There wasn't any light peeking through the curtains, although the moon shone brightly outside.

Christina couldn't sleep. She'd stopped trying an hour and fifteen minutes ago, and lay there studying the planes and valleys of Preston's back. _Isn't it ironic_, she thought, _that I can fall asleep in the middle of some **amazing** sex, but I can't even close my eyes right now?_

Burke hadn't talked to her all day, purposely avoiding the halls she frequented and taking the stairs when he knew she'd be using the elevator. The closest she'd gotten to him in the past 48 hours was when he brushed past her at the nurses' station to retrieve a binder off of the countertop. If you'd asked her earlier that day, she'd have said that he was acting ridiculous. Right now…a part of her that was growing bigger by the second whispered that maybe his anger was justified.

_I am a **person** first!_

She didn't understand how the man she had looked up to since the day she'd arrived at Seattle Grace Hospital could be so precise, so correct, so flawless in his surgeries…and at the same time, be so messy outside of the OR. He let his feelings take him over more often than Christina could ever understand, and how he still managed to keep his edge was the biggest part of the Preston Burke puzzle that she had yet to figure out.

A clean cut was what Christina had prided herself on her entire life. Her edge had helped her graduate as valedictorian of her class back in high school, helped her excel far beyond the other medical students at Stanford, helped her gain a spot in Seattle Grace's internship program.

_It's just coffee, Yang._

Ever since she'd met Burke, ever since he'd brought her what was supposed to be a simple cup of coffee…ever since he'd took hold of her and crushed his lips to hers, her steely resolve had been softening and fading away. She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when things began to change, but Christina knew that over the last year or so she had turned into someone completely different.

_I love you. What the hell is wrong with you that you won't just let me?_

Whether or not the person that Christina was changing into was someone that she wanted to be was still up for debate, but she knew that Preston was going to be around for awhile regardless of whom she turned out to be. Regardless of whether or not she still had the same edge she had entered the program with…although if she fell asleep on him one more time, his patience might be pushed beyond the breaking point.

There wasn't a single sound to be heard throughout the apartment, save the gentle snores emanating from Burke's side of the bed and the sigh Christina released in a fit of frustration. There were three hours and twenty-four minutes until the alarm clock would begin ringing, signaling the start of another day.

Christina couldn't sleep.


	4. Meredith

**So, kids...this is the end of the road for this story. Thanks to all of you who reviewed; you really made this an enjoyable experience. Who knows...maybe I've got another fic or two up my sleeve... ;0)  
Enjoy!**

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Meredith couldn't sleep. 

This was her third sleepover at Finn's. He lay with his arm wrapped around her waist, his warm and gentle breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck and the faint, sweet lingering scent of chardonnay on his mouth.

Meredith couldn't sleep.

The branches of the tree outside of the window moved back and forth in the wind that had picked up, making the shadows on the wall dance. Near her feet, Doc lay curled up in sleep, his legs twitching fitfully.

Meredith couldn't sleep. She had tried to countless times that night already, and her eyes just wouldn't stay shut. She should be happy, she should be tired, she should be ready to sleep in Finn's arms after a home-cooked meal and a glass of good wine…but the day's events tugged persistently at the edges of her mind.

_You really get around_.

She had avoided thinking about it all day, going through the motions at Seattle Grace until her shift was over and plastering a thin but convincing smile on her face throughout her evening with Finn. She kept her hands busy so that he couldn't see them shaking. She looked at the spot between his eyes when he talked so that he couldn't see the pain radiating from them. She kept quiet so that he wouldn't hear the tremor in her voice.

_I don't remember ever **asking** you to forgive me_.

All she could picture in her head was Derek's stony, unmoving countenance as he ripped the last of her to shreds. Any effort to maintain their friendship died right there in the stairwell, killed bit by bit as the words left each other's lips. It had taken everything in Meredith to tell him right then and there what she'd been going through ever since Addison had walked through the doors of Seattle Grace for the first time, and at the end of it all she had just been so _tired._ Tired of fighting with her conscience, tired of wishing things were different. Tired of loving him.

For the first time since Derek chose Addison over her, Meredith had been feeling something other than numbness in someone's arms.

So why was she so hurt?

_This thing with us is finished. It's over._

The fury that he'd unleashed on her all day had taken her by surprise, although as she lay tucked under Finn's shoulder she didn't know how she could have missed it. The minute that Meredith had told Derek what exactly had happened between she and George, she knew what would happen. The light in his eyes died, and the smirk slowly faded off of his face. She had known…she had known exactly what that meant, but since denial was all the rage at Seattle Grace, she had just brushed it off as nothing.

It was never "nothing". Every single thing that transpired between Meredith and Derek on a daily basis meant something; a glance, a smile, the brushing of fingers while passing instruments during surgery. There wasn't a single moment they'd shared since they met each other that didn't mean _something_.

_I make no apologies for how I chose to repair what **you** broke._

Something had to give, and last night was apparently the breaking point. He was the last thing that she had expected to see while walking down the stairs, and judging from the way his face had froze up when she saw him, she was the last thing he had expected as well.

That was it. That was the moment that she'd seen coming…the moment that all the secret smiles, all the joking, laughing, dog-walking, and moments in the elevator had been laid to rest. Meredith and McDreamy were done. Over. Finished.

_You don't get to call me a whore._

Doc let out a low whine at the foot of the bed, his front leg brushing Meredith's toes. Finn tightened his hold on Meredith in response, sighing into her hair and continuing to rest peacefully.

A single tear escaped from her open eyes, blurring the walls of Finn's bedroom and making the shadows soften.

_It's unforgivable._

Meredith couldn't sleep.


End file.
